I'm surprised to hear GX Tron is bad. I haven't faced it often, but I won when I did. I will admit that I drew pretty hot against them, though.
I strongly disagree with Merfolk being an even-ish matchup, though; as someone who primarily plays Merfolk, this is one of my favorite decks to see across the table from me. I win over 80% of my matches against U-Tron. My deck basically has to fail to fire for me to lose.
Just curious why you think TKS is bad against burn ? That's one of the matchups I was thinking about when I decided to add TKS to my board. They bring in artifact hate, while I remove artifacts for a large body that also has hand disruption. If I have to block and they use burn on it well, that's okay. I just removed their most dangerous card in hand while also saving a burn spell from my life total.
TKS destroys Burn; that and Chalice are the reasons Eldrazi Tron has such a good Burn matchup. It’s not at its best against BGx, but it will make hay against Burn, that I assure you.
I think one of the big difference is that they play Eldrazi temple when we don't. This means TKS could come into play on turn 4 at best for us, while it can hit the board as early as turn 2 or 3 in Eldra-tron... It's really different, on the 4th turn, you'll probably be close to dead.
If we could manage to make room for the temple, it could be worth trying them, but I think it's going to be nearly impossible, given our mana base being so tight.
Anyway, I'm gonna try to run some temple and TKS next week, I'll see where it can get me, but I honestly don't believe in these cards...
Wait and see...
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"He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged."
I am one of the conservative guys who doesn't like to deviate too much from Shok's 75 so I am trying to get out of my comfort zone and try something different...I started some friendly leagues with "the Japanese list" exactly as posted. I plan to keep going until I am not rolling free leagues or I get bored. Currently 4-1, 4-1 (8-2 total) with the stock list, but my matchups have not been really tier 1 so it doesn't mean much to me yet. I am compiling matchup results results in excel and will share when I am done (with screenshots...I don't think it's 100% necessary but it is nice to have some transparency about results) if anyone is interested in the deck going that direction.
So far the only things I have concluded: #1: I miss playing with TKS. Almost all of my games have been won on his back. Something E-Tron doesn't get to do is repeal/Cyclonic a problem permanent and TKS it into exile. Both of my losses have come against Blood Moon keeping me off colorless and unable to cast him. Maybe a mana rock is needed still? #2: Batterskull feels useless. The list already plays 4 Wurmcoil and I'd rather just replace them in the side with more Chalices or something.
TKS seems really good because it's so good in matchups that are bad for us, such as Gx Tron, Burn, etc. I don't really know why you think TKS is weak against Burn. It's extremely hard to deal with as the Burn player. And our counterspells, repeals, and Wurmcoils make our deck already strong to BGx decks anyways and taking a card like BBE or a Liliana is just a nightmare for them. It also blocks against Geist and usually is a 2-for-1. TKS is real IMO. Been testing out 4x TKS and 3x Wurmcoil main and it's super strong. It's only terrible against RG Eldrazi.
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Decks
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
Not sure why you're being so aggressive here. TKS has always been a good card against Burn because it takes a burn card from their hand and provides a 4/4 body that Burn traditionally has a hard time dealing with. So it almost always (unless they bring in Path in game 2) takes away 2+ cards from Burn to get rid of it. Burn has very little card draw and resistance to discard so cards like Inquisition and Collective Brutality has always been, no pun intended, brutal against them. Ask any Burn player if you need more proof. Here is the link to their primer.
Regarding BGx matchups, the matchup is already a great matchup for us. I side 2 TKS out against them because there are better cards against them in the SB. The point I was trying to get at was that no matter how good/bad TKS is in the matchup, we already have a great matchup against BGx. So it's likely to not matter. Also, tapping out for TKS on turn 4 against BGx decks is never "nothing". What are they going to do on turn 4-5 that is so strong that a TKS is going to do "nothing"? And of course you're not just gonna play TKS into a resolved Liliana.
There is only one reason I'm being "aggressive" (I am - not referred to the person but to the argument, that's a given): stating such an obvious mistruth can lead the wrong direction. Burn usually win by turn three or four, if you nothing in the first turns. We already do little to nothing - and we can oppose counterspells only if we're on the play. So, tell me: how the hell is TKSeer "good" against Burn when they ALREADY have deployed their hand on turn four? They don't care at all, simply put. And yes, they WILL play Path in sideboard games, because we already run several Wurmcoils (and Platz Angel, at least most of us). But the fact is: you're cutting cheaper interaction (Mages, Snapcaster -> tutored cards) for something which doesn't advance our gameplan against them. How is the trade favourable to us? Inquisition have a totally different impact on the match-up. It costs ONE mana. The difference is abysmal.
You said, "Is good against Burn because you decided is good? I already explained why HE IS NOT. Whenever you advance an argument, always explain it."
That is quite condescending and aggressive. Remember that we are here to work as a team to make the deck better. Also, I still play my Snapcaster. I play 4x TKS, 3x Wurmcoil, 1x Emrakul, 1x Snap, 1x Walking Ballista.
I don't quite agree with you in that TKS makes our bad matchups worse. There are more rooms that we can work with if we decided to remove the "win-more" cards or bad in the meta cards like Platinum Angel. Most of our bad matchups right now come from the matchups where our counterspells are irrelevant. Burn is a problem, but the matchup is literally a toss-up. You either have all the answers or you don't and they kill you by turn 3-4. I don't think it matters what you play. I recently went to a 1k event where I played something similar to Shok's list and lost to Burn with a perfect start. And in one of the games, I deployed Chalice on 1 on turn 2, and Trinket Mage on turn 3 to get another chalice, but still died on turn 4. If Burn is heavy in your meta or you're expecting a heavy showing for Burn in a tournament, I think cards like Filigree Familiar might be better because it at least does something against other decks too.
FYI this is my current decklist that I'm still tinkering around with:
If our Main creature is now wormcoil, why not solem 4 in this deck and seer in side? Fast er getting wurmcoil online is maybe the key? With Talisman possible turn 4 without tron...good vs. Lillianas, better vs. Jace, even burn maybe better because Wurm is our out
I'm not quite seeing the benefit of TKS in the deck, relative to other options.
It provides hand disruption, when it enters, I get that. That's great for potentially creating issues for the opponent's following turns, by limiting what they can cast and gaining information about what they have. However, we already disrupt/limit what they can cast through bounce/removal. Obviously, a different type of disruption. Additionally, at 4 CMC is a 4/4 body that provides 1 shot hand disruption, with the downside of giving the opponent a blind draw, worth it in our deck (when compared to alternatives)?
I'm not saying, definitively, that it does or doesn't, but I question the value in our deck.
As @MTGthewary mentioned, if we're looking for a 4 CMC utility creature, why not revert back to Solemn? It provides mana fixing by allowing a fetch when it comes in, then, once it gets pathed/pushed/bolted/chump blocks/etc., it provides us with a draw, making it card neutral in our favor.
I see folks complaining about a lack of blue mana or limited blue mana. Solemn fixes that and it replaces itself, via draw when it dies.
I don't see folks complaining about not being able to interact with / disrupt their opponent's game plan. Yet, that's what TKS does. (Yes, it also provides a decent 4/4 body)
I foresee a lot of situations where you tap out for a T4 TKS to disrupt opponent's hand and then get blasted T4.5/T5 by all the threats they have in hand, they can now cast without fear of counter. TKS in E-Tron is a different story, because they're running E-Temple, along with Urza lands, and can get him down T2 or T3, which is significant.
As a later game play, I agree, TKS is a pretty decent card to play, with additional mana open to protect him and still be able to counter opponent's other threats.
There again, if the issue folks are having, which is what I've been seeing in here, is early game interaction, how does TKS help with that?
I suppose what I'm looking for here is what makes TKS a valuable addition over something like Solemn and what's the intended use?
Is it a T4 interaction piece that you're arguing is better than the alternatives we have available on T4? Is it a T4 threat that puts our opponent on the defensive and creates auxiliary value by doing so? Or, something different?
Just for the record, I wasn't advocating TKS in the mainboard but rather running 2-3 in the sideboard. Everyone tries to bring in artifact hate against us, so TKS throws them a curveball and dodges their board cards while adding a big body and disruption.
Also, you're blasting the card for being to slow (turn 4) against burn, while saying chalice is a better answer because it's faster. That's fine... except that you'd be dropping chalice on turn 4 as well. G2 against burn you want your chalices on 2 not 1 or it'll just get hit with revelry.
About the TKS, they serve multiples purposes. They are for the most part like pathfinders: they test the counter while on the stack, and make people use what they want to use before we see their hand and remove something from it for good. Also, they create agood position for us to lets say make further plays since they only for 4 of ou 7 tron or 4 of our 8 mana-turn 4. For example, yesterday i was playing against tribal zoo. I had my tron and a blue, so i started by playing TKS for the "wayfinding effect": reslusts were that I saw their had while they were tapped out (an ancient grudge, it was post-SB; a tribal flame; 1 lands, they had at this point 3 lands; and a BBE), remove the BBE and put a chalice on 2 for an instant win.
The moral here is that i got to see alot of information while keeping mana up for anything. It plays the same role with control; trading a TKS for a counterspell for "only" 4 mana we still to play alot more after. Also it's kinda good against jace, since we get to easely play it back after a bounce to take another thing, thus keeping jace on a -1 tempo and they hand on a TKS-seize tempo.
Playing main 4 TKS and 4 Wurmcoil makes the tron assembling really important. But it also makes us more mana flexible for we have alot more cheaper colorless spells. (aka TKS)
On the burn issue, it really doesn't change that much wether we play the classic list or the "japanese list". we still die to the same things by turn 3. But I do think that the "japanese list" is REALLY stronger when we get past that, for it forces them to draw spell instead of creature (TKS in da way) and we recuperate way better for we play 4 Wurmcoils MB. But overall it stays the same imho: if we are on the draw on the first game we statistically lose. That said it is easily concievable to see "JPN list" being a better t3 Tron against burn that the other list, but i think that over all it doesn't change that much. Burn. is. a. bad. matchup.
Also, as said numerous time, the "japanese list" has one fairly important advantage over the classic list which is that it's not looking for it's perfect threats it simply has really good threats over all.
Solemn fixces the mana a turn too late; the same goes for the mages (trinket/treasure), they find our threat a turn too late while turnning off our blue. These are some of the main reasons I keep on testing the "JPN list".
About the TKS, they serve multiples purposes. They are for the most part like pathfinders: they test the counter while on the stack, and make people use what they want to use before we see their hand and remove something from it for good. Also, they create agood position for us to lets say make further plays since they only for 4 of ou 7 tron or 4 of our 8 mana-turn 4. For example, yesterday i was playing against tribal zoo. I had my tron and a blue, so i started by playing TKS for the "wayfinding effect": reslusts were that I saw their had while they were tapped out (an ancient grudge, it was post-SB; a tribal flame; 1 lands, they had at this point 3 lands; and a BBE), remove the BBE and put a chalice on 2 for an instant win.
The moral here is that i got to see alot of information while keeping mana up for anything. It plays the same role with control; trading a TKS for a counterspell for "only" 4 mana we still to play alot more after. Also it's kinda good against jace, since we get to easely play it back after a bounce to take another thing, thus keeping jace on a -1 tempo and they hand on a TKS-seize tempo.
Playing main 4 TKS and 4 Wurmcoil makes the tron assembling really important. But it also makes us more mana flexible for we have alot more cheaper colorless spells. (aka TKS)
On the burn issue, it really doesn't change that much wether we play the classic list or the "japanese list". we still die to the same things by turn 3. But I do think that the "japanese list" is REALLY stronger when we get past that, for it forces them to draw spell instead of creature (TKS in da way) and we recuperate way better for we play 4 Wurmcoils MB. But overall it stays the same imho: if we are on the draw on the first game we statistically lose. That said it is easily concievable to see "JPN list" being a better t3 Tron against burn that the other list, but i think that over all it doesn't change that much. Burn. is. a. bad. matchup.
Also, as said numerous time, the "japanese list" has one fairly important advantage over the classic list which is that it's not looking for it's perfect threats it simply has really good threats over all.
Solemn fixces the mana a turn too late; the same goes for the mages (trinket/treasure), they find our threat a turn too late while turnning off our blue. These are some of the main reasons I keep on testing the "JPN list".
Okay, you've got 1 example where TKS really helped you out, by providing you with information and a clear line of play. Extrapolated out, I'm sure that situation will arise again and there will be others similar to it. However, how often will that happen? (legitimately asking)
As you note though, 4 TKS and 4 Wurmcoil makes us even more reliant on Tron, which we are historically slower at getting to than other Tron decks. You've just switched from having blue mana starvation being a problem to tron mana starvation being a problem.
Additionally, you note that in bad matchups (which we all seem to acknowledge are matches against fast decks; the example you used was Burn), TKS is useless, unless you can survive past T3/T4. Even then, you're still susceptible to eating the final Bolt to the face for lethal, depending on what's in their hand, because you have no mana up for counters, having just used it all to cast TKS.
Again, as I mentioned previously, later game play seems to be where TKS does work for our deck. Your own examples note that. In longer matches though, do we need something like TKS to help us? Or, do we already have good game in those matches?
Looking at the link posted to Pierakor's match history:
Jund, Abzan, RG Breach, RG Titanshift, UW Control, Grixis Control, Lantern, UR Storm, Ad Nauseam, Bogles, Burn, Living End, Delver and E-Tron all have a significant enough number of matches and win rates > 60%. Aside from Burn and Bogles, these are all slower, mid rangey and Combo decks.
Affinity, Merfolk, Infect, Dredge, Gx Tron (RG & GW), Bantdrazi, Elves, and Scapeshift all have a significant enough number of matches and win rates < 50%. Here we have a mix of the fastest decks in Modern and the "big mana" decks of Gx Tron and Scapeshift.
In the matchups with higher win rates, does TKS improve that win rate, or lower it?
Of the 8 sub 50% win rate decks with significant enough numbers of matches, 5 are fast creature decks where, I would argue, TKS isn't going to help whatsoever. Of those 5, 4 of those decks have usually emptied their hands by T4 and are swinging for lethal. The 5th, Dredge doesn't give a rip what you take from its hand because it's not interacting with you anyways.
So, realistically, we're looking at Gx Tron, Scapeshift, and Bantdrazi. Scapeshift and Bandrazi aren't really represented in significant numbers these days, as far as I know, so Gx Tron is the only deck with a sub 50% win rate you're likely to match up against on a regular basis. Is TKS going to help there?
Burn and Bogles are shut down by Chalice on 1 game 1 and 2, assuming you can protect it in game 2. Chalice on 2 for burn is gg as well. Similarly, UR Storm is shut down by Chalice. Lantern is also susceptible to a Chalice. Affinity, Merfolk, Infect, and Elves are also susceptible to a Chalice, as a large number of their creatures and acceleration are at 0 - 1 CMC.
From this information, you could argue that it is more apparent that increasing the number of Chalices in the deck would improve a larger number of bad match ups than TKS would. So, why not increase the Chalice count to 4 main?
I am legitimately asking these questions. We have some data from Pie, who was good enough to provide us with something usable for making objective decisions, so let's use it.
Not sure if anyone's interested, but I started filling in pie's video data into a spreadsheet to track how particular cards being in the opening hand correlate with wins. I've still got a ways to go, but interesting results so far...
Not sure if anyone's interested, but I started filling in pie's video data into a spreadsheet to track how particular cards being in the opening hand correlate with wins. I've still got a ways to go, but interesting results so far...
I'm interested in this, but am not great at understanding the data. Can you explain like I'm five? How are you getting the weighted percentage and what exactly does that mean?
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Modern Decks Built U Mono U Tron WR Boros Burn with one Stomping Ground UR Storm C Eldrazi Powder G Mono Green Tron
It is bizarre that people are so quick to dismiss or argue away a card before trying it. I put in 4x wurmcoil and 4 x TKS after seeing that list and I am trying it out rather than arguing my way out from trying it. I have found every game I resolved it against most decks it is after countering/bouncing a card and swings the momentum in a real interesting way. I have also slammed 2 in a row on turn 5 to just rip the opponent apart. It allows the deck to change from its traditional defensive role until it has 7+ land to the agressor on turn 4 that now has a threat to answer and provides information and can act as a win condition. It is quite amazing how powerful the sequencing is. Opponents most of the time have to expend resources on TKS and then you just play wurmcoil, or TKS eat path and you are clear, or you know what to put chalice on.
I am not trying to get you all to play TKS and wurmcoil but when we argue the point rather than actually trying things we will run the risk of missing innovation because we argued our way out of even trying. (Please do not use this argument to justify playing blue sun zenith or something else ridiculous. The TKS/Wurmcoil list has had the best success over any other u-tron list in a long time)
So what I do is enter in each individual games' data (preboard or postboard, opponent's deck, on the play or draw, if the game was won or lost, if the match was won or lost, the date, the pilot, etc.).
Part of that data is I enter in what cards are in the opening hand for each game, and how many. I have it set up with pivot tables for the "Weighted Data Trends" tab to see what percentage of games are won when a specific card is in the opening hand. So as of right now I have 71 games of data entered. We can look at how Condescend correlates with win percentages as our example. There were 45 games where there were no Condescends in hand, and 24 of those were won. So the deck was able to win 53.33% of the games without Condescend being in the opening hand. There were 19 games with one Condescend in the opening hand, of which 13 were wins, giving us 68.42% of those games won. That gives us a 15.09% increase in win percentage when one Condescend was in the opening hand. So Condescend looks like a decent card to have in the opener so far.
However, we want to account for sample size. This is where a weight is calculated. To do this, I divide the total number of games in which a Condescend was in the opener by the total number of games (so, 26/71). The greater this fraction, the more games will have data on this specific card, and therefore the more reliable the data is on that card. I then multiply the "delta" (increase in win percentage that correlates with this card) with that weight, giving us our weighted %.
I then have the spreadsheet rank each card by the weighted score, column J. Sometimes we'll have more than 1 of a card in our hand, though, so there are additional columns calculating that. All of that is then used to find the average increase as numbers of that specific card in the opening hand increase. So, a card could be great in the opener, but multiples might score lower, implying that we might not want to run four of that card, maybe three or two instead. This helps account for diminished returns from that card.
So I have it ranking each card primarily by column J, then tiebreak with column AE(for diminished returns).
I then use all of this to help me determine an optimum list. For example, you'll see that Supreme Will, which most lists only run as a singleton, scores much better than Thirst for Knowledge. This isn't something that many people would be able to intuit, and apparently haven't as of yet. However, it makes sense in hindsight, after looking at the data. Supreme Will does nearly the same thing as Thirst, but has a second relevant mode, on curve. It even digs a card deeper than Thirst. We see that Spatial Contortion also has high correlations with increased win percentages, which makes sense. The deck is already relatively strong against slower matchups, and weaker against quick, aggressive decks that get in under our counters. Contortion helps with this weakness, while not interfering with our preference for colorless Tron lands.
With this data, I built the following list and played at my LGS tonight:
Now, I'm not convinced that this is a perfectly tuned list either, but I feel that it's a step in the right direction. I decided that Gemstone Caverns is probably better either left to the sideboard, only to be brought in when it has the chance to hit, or dropped altogether. I'm not entirely confident in the Batterskull, but tried it out anyways. I was also not sure about Commit//Memory, but it actually performed very well in practice. Fabricate likewise performed well, and being able to choose exactly the card I need instead of being forced to pick the most applicable of either 6+ or 1- cmc artifacts was very nice. The card that had the biggest impression on me was Supreme Will, in that it worked perfectly with Condescend. Condescend was able to be my early pre-Tron counter, or my late post-Tron counter. Supreme Will was usually my follow-up pre-Tron counter if I needed it, but when combined with Expedition Map and Condescend's scry effect, I was able to use it to assemble Tron very effectively if I didn't need to counter anything.
And again, all of this kind of makes sense, in the game theory sense. I've mentioned the use of minimax and expectimax before, particularly it's use as it applies to the design and construction of Lantern. Supreme Will was able to fill this role for the deck, in reducing the opponent's relevant options as necessary, but also increasing our options as needed.
I haven't fully assembled a sideboard yet, but my preliminary sideboard looks as follows:
I'm kind of tempted to up the number of Chalice in the sideboard, but I was very happy with being able to find it when I needed in the main thanks to Expedition Map and Tolaria West, while keeping pressure with the other counters. Being able to Chalice on one and then land a Platinum Angel was very effective.
EDIT: I would like to note, both Oblivion Stone and Walking Ballista also seem to score well. However, my LGS did not have these cards on hand for me to pick up to include into my deck. That is why I don't have a 2nd Stone and a Ballista in my list.
I strongly disagree with Merfolk being an even-ish matchup, though; as someone who primarily plays Merfolk, this is one of my favorite decks to see across the table from me. I win over 80% of my matches against U-Tron. My deck basically has to fail to fire for me to lose.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Retired
Legacy:
GRUB Lands
Modern:
U Tron
RG Tron
RG Ponza
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
If we could manage to make room for the temple, it could be worth trying them, but I think it's going to be nearly impossible, given our mana base being so tight.
Anyway, I'm gonna try to run some temple and TKS next week, I'll see where it can get me, but I honestly don't believe in these cards...
Wait and see...
So far the only things I have concluded: #1: I miss playing with TKS. Almost all of my games have been won on his back. Something E-Tron doesn't get to do is repeal/Cyclonic a problem permanent and TKS it into exile. Both of my losses have come against Blood Moon keeping me off colorless and unable to cast him. Maybe a mana rock is needed still? #2: Batterskull feels useless. The list already plays 4 Wurmcoil and I'd rather just replace them in the side with more Chalices or something.
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
Not sure why you're being so aggressive here. TKS has always been a good card against Burn because it takes a burn card from their hand and provides a 4/4 body that Burn traditionally has a hard time dealing with. So it almost always (unless they bring in Path in game 2) takes away 2+ cards from Burn to get rid of it. Burn has very little card draw and resistance to discard so cards like Inquisition and Collective Brutality has always been, no pun intended, brutal against them. Ask any Burn player if you need more proof. Here is the link to their primer.
Regarding BGx matchups, the matchup is already a great matchup for us. I side 2 TKS out against them because there are better cards against them in the SB. The point I was trying to get at was that no matter how good/bad TKS is in the matchup, we already have a great matchup against BGx. So it's likely to not matter. Also, tapping out for TKS on turn 4 against BGx decks is never "nothing". What are they going to do on turn 4-5 that is so strong that a TKS is going to do "nothing"? And of course you're not just gonna play TKS into a resolved Liliana.
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
You said, "Is good against Burn because you decided is good? I already explained why HE IS NOT. Whenever you advance an argument, always explain it."
That is quite condescending and aggressive. Remember that we are here to work as a team to make the deck better. Also, I still play my Snapcaster. I play 4x TKS, 3x Wurmcoil, 1x Emrakul, 1x Snap, 1x Walking Ballista.
I don't quite agree with you in that TKS makes our bad matchups worse. There are more rooms that we can work with if we decided to remove the "win-more" cards or bad in the meta cards like Platinum Angel. Most of our bad matchups right now come from the matchups where our counterspells are irrelevant. Burn is a problem, but the matchup is literally a toss-up. You either have all the answers or you don't and they kill you by turn 3-4. I don't think it matters what you play. I recently went to a 1k event where I played something similar to Shok's list and lost to Burn with a perfect start. And in one of the games, I deployed Chalice on 1 on turn 2, and Trinket Mage on turn 3 to get another chalice, but still died on turn 4. If Burn is heavy in your meta or you're expecting a heavy showing for Burn in a tournament, I think cards like Filigree Familiar might be better because it at least does something against other decks too.
FYI this is my current decklist that I'm still tinkering around with:
2x Field of Ruin
6x Island
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x River of Tears
1x Tolaria West
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4x Condescend
1x Cyclonic Rift
2x Dismember
3x Remand
3x Repeal
4x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Expedition Map
1x Mindslaver
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Snapcaster Mage
4x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Walking Ballista
3x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Dismember
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Negate
4x Spatial Contortion
3x Spreading Seas
1x Sundering Titan
2x Surgical Extraction
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
pie shared a spreadsheet, and theres a video on his youtube channel where he shows anothet spreadsheet that includes multiple players, including shok. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRg9VaC08KmqPJBfqqzNF9TmtTwJyPsXMoyPWTWrw7GXk9DWFsz52Um7Vic5QepcZMyykDaU9BTdpu7/pubhtml?gid=1901420698&single=true
It provides hand disruption, when it enters, I get that. That's great for potentially creating issues for the opponent's following turns, by limiting what they can cast and gaining information about what they have. However, we already disrupt/limit what they can cast through bounce/removal. Obviously, a different type of disruption. Additionally, at 4 CMC is a 4/4 body that provides 1 shot hand disruption, with the downside of giving the opponent a blind draw, worth it in our deck (when compared to alternatives)?
I'm not saying, definitively, that it does or doesn't, but I question the value in our deck.
As @MTGthewary mentioned, if we're looking for a 4 CMC utility creature, why not revert back to Solemn? It provides mana fixing by allowing a fetch when it comes in, then, once it gets pathed/pushed/bolted/chump blocks/etc., it provides us with a draw, making it card neutral in our favor.
I see folks complaining about a lack of blue mana or limited blue mana. Solemn fixes that and it replaces itself, via draw when it dies.
I don't see folks complaining about not being able to interact with / disrupt their opponent's game plan. Yet, that's what TKS does. (Yes, it also provides a decent 4/4 body)
I foresee a lot of situations where you tap out for a T4 TKS to disrupt opponent's hand and then get blasted T4.5/T5 by all the threats they have in hand, they can now cast without fear of counter. TKS in E-Tron is a different story, because they're running E-Temple, along with Urza lands, and can get him down T2 or T3, which is significant.
As a later game play, I agree, TKS is a pretty decent card to play, with additional mana open to protect him and still be able to counter opponent's other threats.
There again, if the issue folks are having, which is what I've been seeing in here, is early game interaction, how does TKS help with that?
I suppose what I'm looking for here is what makes TKS a valuable addition over something like Solemn and what's the intended use?
Is it a T4 interaction piece that you're arguing is better than the alternatives we have available on T4? Is it a T4 threat that puts our opponent on the defensive and creates auxiliary value by doing so? Or, something different?
Just for the record, I wasn't advocating TKS in the mainboard but rather running 2-3 in the sideboard. Everyone tries to bring in artifact hate against us, so TKS throws them a curveball and dodges their board cards while adding a big body and disruption.
Also, you're blasting the card for being to slow (turn 4) against burn, while saying chalice is a better answer because it's faster. That's fine... except that you'd be dropping chalice on turn 4 as well. G2 against burn you want your chalices on 2 not 1 or it'll just get hit with revelry.
Retired
Legacy:
GRUB Lands
Modern:
U Tron
RG Tron
RG Ponza
The moral here is that i got to see alot of information while keeping mana up for anything. It plays the same role with control; trading a TKS for a counterspell for "only" 4 mana we still to play alot more after. Also it's kinda good against jace, since we get to easely play it back after a bounce to take another thing, thus keeping jace on a -1 tempo and they hand on a TKS-seize tempo.
Playing main 4 TKS and 4 Wurmcoil makes the tron assembling really important. But it also makes us more mana flexible for we have alot more cheaper colorless spells. (aka TKS)
On the burn issue, it really doesn't change that much wether we play the classic list or the "japanese list". we still die to the same things by turn 3. But I do think that the "japanese list" is REALLY stronger when we get past that, for it forces them to draw spell instead of creature (TKS in da way) and we recuperate way better for we play 4 Wurmcoils MB. But overall it stays the same imho: if we are on the draw on the first game we statistically lose. That said it is easily concievable to see "JPN list" being a better t3 Tron against burn that the other list, but i think that over all it doesn't change that much. Burn. is. a. bad. matchup.
Also, as said numerous time, the "japanese list" has one fairly important advantage over the classic list which is that it's not looking for it's perfect threats it simply has really good threats over all.
Solemn fixces the mana a turn too late; the same goes for the mages (trinket/treasure), they find our threat a turn too late while turnning off our blue. These are some of the main reasons I keep on testing the "JPN list".
Okay, you've got 1 example where TKS really helped you out, by providing you with information and a clear line of play. Extrapolated out, I'm sure that situation will arise again and there will be others similar to it. However, how often will that happen? (legitimately asking)
As you note though, 4 TKS and 4 Wurmcoil makes us even more reliant on Tron, which we are historically slower at getting to than other Tron decks. You've just switched from having blue mana starvation being a problem to tron mana starvation being a problem.
Additionally, you note that in bad matchups (which we all seem to acknowledge are matches against fast decks; the example you used was Burn), TKS is useless, unless you can survive past T3/T4. Even then, you're still susceptible to eating the final Bolt to the face for lethal, depending on what's in their hand, because you have no mana up for counters, having just used it all to cast TKS.
Again, as I mentioned previously, later game play seems to be where TKS does work for our deck. Your own examples note that. In longer matches though, do we need something like TKS to help us? Or, do we already have good game in those matches?
Looking at the link posted to Pierakor's match history:
Jund, Abzan, RG Breach, RG Titanshift, UW Control, Grixis Control, Lantern, UR Storm, Ad Nauseam, Bogles, Burn, Living End, Delver and E-Tron all have a significant enough number of matches and win rates > 60%. Aside from Burn and Bogles, these are all slower, mid rangey and Combo decks.
Affinity, Merfolk, Infect, Dredge, Gx Tron (RG & GW), Bantdrazi, Elves, and Scapeshift all have a significant enough number of matches and win rates < 50%. Here we have a mix of the fastest decks in Modern and the "big mana" decks of Gx Tron and Scapeshift.
In the matchups with higher win rates, does TKS improve that win rate, or lower it?
Of the 8 sub 50% win rate decks with significant enough numbers of matches, 5 are fast creature decks where, I would argue, TKS isn't going to help whatsoever. Of those 5, 4 of those decks have usually emptied their hands by T4 and are swinging for lethal. The 5th, Dredge doesn't give a rip what you take from its hand because it's not interacting with you anyways.
So, realistically, we're looking at Gx Tron, Scapeshift, and Bantdrazi. Scapeshift and Bandrazi aren't really represented in significant numbers these days, as far as I know, so Gx Tron is the only deck with a sub 50% win rate you're likely to match up against on a regular basis. Is TKS going to help there?
Burn and Bogles are shut down by Chalice on 1 game 1 and 2, assuming you can protect it in game 2. Chalice on 2 for burn is gg as well. Similarly, UR Storm is shut down by Chalice. Lantern is also susceptible to a Chalice. Affinity, Merfolk, Infect, and Elves are also susceptible to a Chalice, as a large number of their creatures and acceleration are at 0 - 1 CMC.
From this information, you could argue that it is more apparent that increasing the number of Chalices in the deck would improve a larger number of bad match ups than TKS would. So, why not increase the Chalice count to 4 main?
I am legitimately asking these questions. We have some data from Pie, who was good enough to provide us with something usable for making objective decisions, so let's use it.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I'm interested in this, but am not great at understanding the data. Can you explain like I'm five? How are you getting the weighted percentage and what exactly does that mean?
U Mono U Tron
WR Boros Burn with one Stomping Ground
UR Storm
C Eldrazi Powder
G Mono Green Tron
I am not trying to get you all to play TKS and wurmcoil but when we argue the point rather than actually trying things we will run the risk of missing innovation because we argued our way out of even trying. (Please do not use this argument to justify playing blue sun zenith or something else ridiculous. The TKS/Wurmcoil list has had the best success over any other u-tron list in a long time)
So what I do is enter in each individual games' data (preboard or postboard, opponent's deck, on the play or draw, if the game was won or lost, if the match was won or lost, the date, the pilot, etc.).
Part of that data is I enter in what cards are in the opening hand for each game, and how many. I have it set up with pivot tables for the "Weighted Data Trends" tab to see what percentage of games are won when a specific card is in the opening hand. So as of right now I have 71 games of data entered. We can look at how Condescend correlates with win percentages as our example. There were 45 games where there were no Condescends in hand, and 24 of those were won. So the deck was able to win 53.33% of the games without Condescend being in the opening hand. There were 19 games with one Condescend in the opening hand, of which 13 were wins, giving us 68.42% of those games won. That gives us a 15.09% increase in win percentage when one Condescend was in the opening hand. So Condescend looks like a decent card to have in the opener so far.
However, we want to account for sample size. This is where a weight is calculated. To do this, I divide the total number of games in which a Condescend was in the opener by the total number of games (so, 26/71). The greater this fraction, the more games will have data on this specific card, and therefore the more reliable the data is on that card. I then multiply the "delta" (increase in win percentage that correlates with this card) with that weight, giving us our weighted %.
I then have the spreadsheet rank each card by the weighted score, column J. Sometimes we'll have more than 1 of a card in our hand, though, so there are additional columns calculating that. All of that is then used to find the average increase as numbers of that specific card in the opening hand increase. So, a card could be great in the opener, but multiples might score lower, implying that we might not want to run four of that card, maybe three or two instead. This helps account for diminished returns from that card.
So I have it ranking each card primarily by column J, then tiebreak with column AE(for diminished returns).
I then use all of this to help me determine an optimum list. For example, you'll see that Supreme Will, which most lists only run as a singleton, scores much better than Thirst for Knowledge. This isn't something that many people would be able to intuit, and apparently haven't as of yet. However, it makes sense in hindsight, after looking at the data. Supreme Will does nearly the same thing as Thirst, but has a second relevant mode, on curve. It even digs a card deeper than Thirst. We see that Spatial Contortion also has high correlations with increased win percentages, which makes sense. The deck is already relatively strong against slower matchups, and weaker against quick, aggressive decks that get in under our counters. Contortion helps with this weakness, while not interfering with our preference for colorless Tron lands.
With this data, I built the following list and played at my LGS tonight:
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Gemstone Caverns
9 Island
Artifacts:
4 Expedition Map
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Platinum Angel
1 Mindslaver
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Batterskull
1 Torrential Gearhulk
4 Condescend
4 Supreme Will
4 Repeal
3 Commit//Memory
3 Spatial Contortion
2 Remand
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Fabricate
2 Treasure Mage
Now, I'm not convinced that this is a perfectly tuned list either, but I feel that it's a step in the right direction. I decided that Gemstone Caverns is probably better either left to the sideboard, only to be brought in when it has the chance to hit, or dropped altogether. I'm not entirely confident in the Batterskull, but tried it out anyways. I was also not sure about Commit//Memory, but it actually performed very well in practice. Fabricate likewise performed well, and being able to choose exactly the card I need instead of being forced to pick the most applicable of either 6+ or 1- cmc artifacts was very nice. The card that had the biggest impression on me was Supreme Will, in that it worked perfectly with Condescend. Condescend was able to be my early pre-Tron counter, or my late post-Tron counter. Supreme Will was usually my follow-up pre-Tron counter if I needed it, but when combined with Expedition Map and Condescend's scry effect, I was able to use it to assemble Tron very effectively if I didn't need to counter anything.
And again, all of this kind of makes sense, in the game theory sense. I've mentioned the use of minimax and expectimax before, particularly it's use as it applies to the design and construction of Lantern. Supreme Will was able to fill this role for the deck, in reducing the opponent's relevant options as necessary, but also increasing our options as needed.
I haven't fully assembled a sideboard yet, but my preliminary sideboard looks as follows:
I'm kind of tempted to up the number of Chalice in the sideboard, but I was very happy with being able to find it when I needed in the main thanks to Expedition Map and Tolaria West, while keeping pressure with the other counters. Being able to Chalice on one and then land a Platinum Angel was very effective.
EDIT: I would like to note, both Oblivion Stone and Walking Ballista also seem to score well. However, my LGS did not have these cards on hand for me to pick up to include into my deck. That is why I don't have a 2nd Stone and a Ballista in my list.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan